AAA/SynDEx Glossary

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big-endian

memory encoding of multi-cell integer data, where the most significant cell ("big-end") is stored first, i.e. cells of decreasing significance are stored at increasing addresses; symmetrically, in the little-endian memory encoding, the least significant cell ("little-end") is stored first, i.e. cells of increasing significance are stored at increasing addresses

boot

qualifies initial actions that a processor executes when it is powered on

boot-loader

resident non-volatile program, executed by a processor when it is powered on, to download code and data to initialize its local memory

coverage tree

a coverage tree of a graph G is a graph T with the same vertices as G, but with a subset of G's edges, such that T is a tree, i.e. a graph with no circuit, i.e. with a unique path between any two vertices (in an oriented tree, all the paths converge to, or symmetrically diverge from, a single vertex called the tree "root")

download

transfer of code and/or data, from a source non-volatile memory, downto a destination memory, through intermediate communication media, and maybe through intermediate processors

executive

interface program between the user application code and the hardware resources; usual executives are designed, compiled, linked, and loaded separately from application code, and therefore must take at runtime resource allocation decisions; SynDEx executives are generated, compiled, linked, and loaded together with application code, and therefore may take at compile time more sophisticated resource allocation decisions with no runtime overhead

graph

a (non-)oriented graph is composed of two sets: a set of vertices, and a set of (non-)oriented edges, where each edge is a (un-)ordered pair of vertices, called "source" and "destination" in the oriented case; an hypergraph may have edges with any number of vertices; a dataflow graph is an oriented hypergraph where each vertex is an operation, and where each edge is a data-dependence with a single source and one or several destinations

macroprocessor, m4

program that translates its input character stream into an output character stream by substituting all macro-references by their respective macro-definitions; macro-references may, or may not, take arguments, enclosed within parenthesis, and separated by commas; predefined macros allow to define new macros, to process strings, regular expressions, numeric expressions, to include files, divert substitued text from the output and undivert it later to allow complex text reordering, etc. (see m4 documentation)

non-volatile

qualifies a memory which retrieves, when it is powered on, the state that it had when it was powered off; EPROM and FLASH memories, floppy and hard disks, and magnetic tapes, are examples of non-volatile memories

operating system

complex executive, providing at least a textual user interface (display and keyboard), often a graphical user interface (windows, menus, and pointing device), and a large read/write-able non-volatile mass memory with memory management for a "file system"